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Improving Reliability Through HALT and HASS Testing
October 1, 2013 |Estimated reading time: 1 minute
HALT and HASS are used to uncover many of the weak links inherent to the design and fabrication process of a new product, as well as during the production phase to find manufacturing defects that could cause product failures in the field. The types of HALT and HASS chambers available in the market, along with the equipment capabilities, will be reviewed. We will also explore how they used for detection of flaws in design, making the product more rugged and reliable. These capabilities are essential to precipitation and detection of product defects.
Highly accelerated life test (HALT) is a method aimed at discovering and then improving weak links in the product during the design phase. Highly accelerated stress screen (HASS) is a means for finding and fixing process flaws during production. Both techniques employ stresses far beyond the normal operating condition. The process uses discovery testing in which problems are found by testing to failure using accelerated stress conditions. HALT is a discovery test as opposed to a compliance test. The goal is to find problems, remove them, and improve the product making it more robust.
The acronym HALT was coined by Dr. Gregg Hobbs in 1988 after he used the term "design ruggedization" for 18 years. In these tests, every stimulus of potential value is used to identify weak links in the design and fabrication processes during a product’s design phase. These stimuli may include vibration, thermal cycling, burn-in, voltage, humidity, and whatever else will expose relevant weaknesses (including stresses that will not occur in the real world if they generate real-world failure modes). The stresses are not meant to simulate the field environments, but to find the weak links in the design and processes using only a few units and in a very short period of time. The stresses are stepped up to well beyond the expected field environment in order to obtain time compression in identifying design weaknesses. HALT has, on many occasions, provided substantial MTBF gains, from 5 to 1,000 times. Even when used without production screening, HALT has reduced time to market substantially and also reduced the total development costs.Read the full article here.Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the September 2013 issue of SMT Magazine.